"It is a privilege to be here on a Friday to listen to a fantastic speech from my friend the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper). This place, as you know Madam Deputy Speaker, can be quite confrontational at times, but at other times we come together to right …..." Mike Penning - View Speech
"My hon. Friend has touched on a very good point. This Bill is not the silver bullet; it is a method of getting somewhere. The hard work will start once the other place gets its finger out. I will, if I may, come back to that story in a second.
"I concur with my hon. Friend’s congratulations to the RNID. I should have declared an interest, in that I am a patron of the Hertfordshire hearing advisory service, which also does a fantastic job...." Mike Penning - View Speech
"My hon. Friend makes an important point that perhaps I did not stress fully enough in my contribution. There are two groups of people in the deaf community: those born profoundly deaf, and those, like my hon. Friend and myself, who have developed hearing loss during the course of our …..." Mike Penning - View Speech
"Perhaps I can say something on behalf of the House. It is not just those on the Treasury Bench who are saying to the other House, “Please do not table amendments—they will wreck the Bill”; it is this House that is saying that. We want this Bill on the statute …..." Mike Penning - View Speech
"I will not detain the Committee for too long, because what is happening today has been set out brilliantly by the sponsor of the Bill. I want to speak on behalf of my constituents and the deaf community as a whole.
"In the formulation of the board, it is fundamentally important that BSL users and the charities are involved, but there are those outside who say, “No, this is too difficult to do”, so we need some outside influence as well. If we are not careful, it could become slightly too …..." Mike Penning - View Speech
"What an honour and privilege it is to follow my friend the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper). We have talked on the phone in the last couple of days. I agree completely with everything that she said. Like me, she is deeply religious and her mum and dad …..." Mike Penning - View Speech
"As a former disabilities Minister—I had other roles within the Department as well; it was not just disabilities, but that was the lead issue—I say to those on the Front Bench, and I hope the Prime Minister is listening, that we should have a Minister for this role as soon …..." Mike Penning - View Speech
"I was the Minister responsible for taking the Mesothelioma Act through Parliament and, despite the restrictions I was under, Paul was an enormously useful knowledge base. At times I went back to my civil servants and said, “No, I have facts from people who were involved in this.” That was …..." Mike Penning - View Speech